On Thursday, June 4, my wife and I packed into the car and headed for Cleveland, Ohio to witness the start of Hot Mulligan’s headlining summer tour, with opening support from: Koyo, Saturdays At Your Place, and Joyce Manor.
After a long drive and a trip to Colision Bend Brewery, overlooking the venue, we filed into Jacob’s Pavilion alongside hoards of fans, ready for an evening of catharsis and sweat.
The music started with Long Island hardcore up-and-comers Koyo, who led the crowd with great gusto and heart through an incredibly energetic 30-minute set.
My first experience with Koyo was during The Story So Far’s 2024 fall tour, and while I found them good initially, this show blew the last one far out of the water.
The sound was so well-mixed and the crowd was more than attentive—as the set went on, the pits opened up, and the band thundered on.
Next was Kalamazoo, Michigan’s Saturdays At Your Place—a band I was more than excited to finally see perform live and in person.
The band pushed through a set that pulled from each of their releases—from 2021’s something worth celebrating all the way to last year’s these things happen—and they commanded the crowd beautifully the entire time.
As someone who has closely followed the band’s releases for the last half decade, it warmed my heart to see just how receptive and responsive the crowd was.
Every track saw fans screaming lyrics, and the band felt tight and ecstatic to be exactly where they were, and I personally believe that goes a very long way.
Saturdays At Your Place put on one of the most high-energy and fun sets that I’ve seen from the genre in quite a long time—it’s safe to say that they won our hearts even further.
Next up was Joyce Manor, a band I had looked forward to seeing for the better part of a decade.
While the set was diverse and full of hits and fan favorites, the energy from the crowd wasn’t what I’d expected for a longtime staple of this music scene; however, towards the end of the set, the crowd managed to shake the dust off and show these guys the love they deserved.
From old tracks like “House Warning Party,” all the way to new cuts like “All My Friends Are So Depressed,” the band played an incredible set at an almost nonstop pace.
Finally, the sun had set, and as boats slowly floated past the venue, Hot Muligan took the stage. The band launched themselves into 2022’s “Drink Milk And Run.” Crowd surfers poured overhead in twos and threes, and the entire pavilion was alive with energy.
The band ran through a massive 23-song set spanning nearly each release (excluding any cuts from 2016’s Opportunities), and they were firing on all cylinders from start to finish.
After a slew of incredibly well-executed tracks from the last two LPs, the band laid into “SPS” from 2020’s You’ll Be Fine, immediately followed by 2025 single “Prototheme,” easily the band’s heaviest track to date.
When the Michiganders transitioned between tracks “Bon Jonah” and “Monica Lewinskibidi,” they made sure to include it’s intermission track, “This Makes Me Yummy”—with a brief but comedic call-out from lead vocalist Tades, telling fans to admit we all skip intermission tracks; it was lighthearted and charming.
While co-frontman Chris Freeman made mention of suffering from a cold, his vocals didn’t take a hit whatsoever.
The band kept fans on the tips of their toes for the entirety of the evening, and as a longtime fan myself, it’s easy to say that I was more than impressed.
The diversity in the setlist and the band’s ability to jump from one end of their specific spectrum to the other, so seamlessly, and with such high energy, was absolutely phenomenal.
Long time fan or new to them entirely, I highly recommend not missing a tour date near you; otherwise, you’d be depriving yourself of one of the best tours you’ll see this summer.
Tour Dates
https://hotmulligan.band/pages/tour
Photos: Elise Cole
Knowing this venue well and its’ cadence i
ReplyDeleteam glad these bands played here. Sorry i missed the show but thx for an in depth review! Cleveland rocks!